Lewis and I had planned to start out early the next morning for Placerville, a little more than 30 miles distance. After spending the night there, we would continue on the next day and camp somewhere near Col. Alden Jackson’s digs, or maybe a little farther south if we made good time. From there it was only about 15 or 20 miles to the town of Vallecito, and we figured we could start trailing along the Roaring River at that point, looking for some trace of Skeeter Daniels.

We’d been given a pretty good description of Daniels that day when we talked to the crazy old storekeep in Oakdale. Assuming the old man was on the level, we knew we were looking for a tall, wiry man with green eyes, reddish hair and a scar across his right cheek.

Of course, we knew Skeeter was hiding out from the Sonora posse, so we didn't expect to be lucky enough to just run right into him. More than likely, we’d have to “chum a little,” as Lewis put it, meaning we’d have to throw out some hints and see if anybody bit at them. Both of us figured whenever we ran into someone in the general area we were searching, we would casually make a few comments about how bothersome the “skeeters” were. If we got a reaction of some sort – a snarl, a raised eyebrow, a look of fear – that sort of thing, we could assume we were close to our target and would start looking around the place a little closer. If not, we’d just move on down the riverbank, beating the bushes as we passed.

When Lorenzo pulled a map out of his briefcase that night, we saw that the Roaring River started as an artesian spring not far from Vallecito, then ran only a little more than eight miles before it joined the north fork of the Stanislaus. We were thankful it wasn’t a 30 or 40 mile river, but Lorenzo, with his lawyer’s knack for fretting and his earnest desire to better our odds, continued to fret that we'd be looking for a needle in a haystack, especially since neither me nor Lewis knew anything about the Vallecito area. So he left us in his room and ran down to get Soon Hing that night, asking the old coolie if wouldn’t mind traveling with us. It seems a lot of these Chinamen had mined some of the southern fields before moving north, and one of their settlements hadn’t been too awful far from Vallecito.

“Hunan Camp,” Soon said in a breathless voice, after arriving at Sawyer’s hotel room. He was all in a state of excitement and anticipation. “I work in Hunan Camp many weeks,” he said. “I know river and woods there like back of hand. I glad to help friends of Messer Soiya!”

And so it was with a mixture of thankfulness and dread that Lewis and me took Soon Hing up on his offer. We were truly thankful to have some help with our search. At the same time, we didn’t know a lot about these Chinese and weren’t too sure how we’d be received in some of the American camps if we had the little coolie tagging along with us. Still, we made it a point to thank him a number times and he bowed over and over as he left the room, telling us he would meet us there again at 5 a.m. sharp.

“Don't worry,” Lorenzo said, after he had gone. “Soon Hing undoubtedly will be an asset to you. I sense your reluctance to throw in with a foreigner, but trust me when I say that these Chinese have natural proclivities that are many times advantageous over our own, especially when it comes to the powers of observation and the deduction of facts. It may well be that you’ll have some detective work to do, and if you find yourself in a tight spot, Soon Hing is just the one you need to help you ferret out that snake, Daniels.”

So, early the next morning, we hit the road, heading south toward Placerville, where we planned to camp the first night. As it turned out, Soon was a pleasant enough traveling companion, silent much of the time, yet one to speak up when he thought something he had to say might help us reach our objective quicker.

“This is Chinese footpath,” he said at one point along the trail. “We turn here and save many hours.”

It took me and Lewis a few moments to realize what he’d said, and then we saw he was pointing to a faint little track that cut across the main road and looked to be heading due east of the direction we wanted to go.

“Listen, friend,” Lewis said. “Will and I have already been over this road on our way north and we know there’s nothing but higher ground east of here – all rock and hardscrabble far as I can tell.”

“Chinese footpath,” repeated Soon, continuing to point to the little path through the grass.

Lewis took off his hat and scratched the back of his head as he tried to think of a way to make Soon Hing understand him.

“Look, Soon,” he said, “Will and I appreciate you trying to help us out, really we do. But, dang it anyway, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that we could save any time by heading east on this little trail when the whole idea is to go south.”

But the little Chinaman just stood there with his arms folded across his chest and his feet firmly planted on the ground and shook his head as if to completely reject everything Lewis had just said.

“Chinese short cut,” he insisted. “Save much time for Messer Will and Messer Lewis. Easy trail through trees. You see plenty fast if you follow Soon Hing.”

Well, it didn’t take us more than a few minutes to see that we probably would save time by following this Soon Hing. Not because his trail was any shorter, but because if we didn't agree to take it, he’d probably just stand there in the middle of the road with his arms crossed like that for days maybe, and then we wouldn’t get anywhere at all. So we reluctantly followed Lorenzo’s little friend as he gaily skipped onto this faint little wisp of a trail that led to who knows where. Our only hope as we left the main road behind us was that this new path would turn south again at some point.

We traveled for several hours on this little trail, first heading east toward the foothills of the Sierras, then turning south and skirting along the ridge lines and through dense groves of pine trees. It wasn’t a hard trail and we were happy for that, but once we were into the trees we couldn’t really tell where in heck we were, and neither me nor Lewis had any way of telling just how far we’d traveled and where we were in relation to the main road.

Toward late afternoon Lewis was starting to get real growly and irritable. I figured it was because he was pretty much accustomed to leading the way most of the time – not that he couldn’t ever give up his position as trail guide, because I’d seen him follow John Rogers’ suggestions a lot of times. But it was clear his patience was thinning like watered-down molasses, and along about three or four in the afternoon he finally threw off his pack and stomped on ahead of Soon Hing, blocking his path and forcing the little man to slow his breakneck pace and come to an abrupt stop.

“Look, friend,” he said, trying to keep his anger in check, “we’ve got to talk. Will and I have gone along with this thing long enough. We’ve both been patient and have let you lead us where you wanted. But enough’s enough. Now, where in the hell are we?”

“You want go Placerville?” the little man asked.

“Of course we do!” Lewis exclaimed, his exasperation showing. “That’s been our goal all along!”

“You want go Placerville? There is Placerville,” replied the grinning Chinaman. He pointed to the south through a gap in the boughs of a small grove of pine trees just ahead of us. To our amazement, in the distance we saw the top of a church steeple just visible above a low ridge line. Immediately, we recognized it as the one we’d seen on our way north. I had to give Soon Hing some credit, he’d gotten us down to Placerville in record time, and all by way of a faint trail through the woods that neither of us could even see half the time, let alone figure out in what direction we were headed.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Lewis said. He’d taken off his hat again and was vigorously scratching his scalp as he stared at the church steeple.

“Maybe you should visit church,” Soon offered, “then you not be damned no more.”

I think old Soon Hing had got the best of Lewis here, but Lewis just smiled and suggested we move on into town and get something to eat.

As I mentioned before, we’d passed near Placerville before on our way north, but had purposely avoided the main streets of town because we heard some shooting and figured we had enough problems already without one of us providing a home for a stray bullet. The town, which had been dubbed Hangtown in its earliest days, was still regarded as one of the rougher places along the Mother Lode. Fact is, most of the old-timers here still refused to acknowledge the shiny new name that one of the town fathers had bestowed on the place to save it from complete disgrace. There were probably enough hangings each month to justify the town’s nickname, but it was one particular event that had first assured the name would live on. And it was Soon Hing who filled us in on this occurrence as we hiked the last few miles into town.

“Old man in camp,” Soon began, “he had small claim a few mile from town. This man make good strike and dig out many gold dust, almost six thousand dollar worth. But this man he open his mouth too much in camp and one night, three thieves they sneak into his tent and find him asleep. But he not really sleeping. And one robber man he say, ‘If this old man wake up, you and me we slit his throat.’ So old man think, ‘It smart thing for me if I stay looking like I sleep.’ Then the three men they take old man’s gold dust, which he keeps in little buckskin pouches. Then the robber men they ride off, thinking old man is still asleep. But old man he awake and he get up and run to town – go for help. After a few mile from town the three robber men they think they are safe so they stop running and set up camp. They have campfire and pass whiskey and laugh and joke about stealing gold dust. But then, many men from town come out of darkness and surprise three robber men. They bring them back to town, have trial very quick, in wink of eye – snap snap. Then they take three robber men to big tree in center of town and they hang all three at once. It must be very old tree because branch almost breaks, they say. The men they hang there many days before someone at last decide cut them down. People get tired of smell, I think. By this time, strangers who pass through town are calling it Hangtown. And that is how town got name.”

“And where did it get the name Placerville?” Lewis asked.

Soon Hing stopped for a moment and looked at him with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Soon Hing not know that story,” he said, and kept on walking.

Placerville sits on a small tributary of the south fork of the American River, about 50 miles from Sacramento City. Because it was built smack dab on the Carson branch of the overland route, that brought a lot more business and importance to the place than it might have otherwise received. To Lewis and me, the town seemed nearly as large as Sonora. As we entered, we saw the town was enclosed on two sides by high hills, which left a narrow valley between. Placerville sat in this valley and went on for more than a mile, with one main street and lots of little side roads and alleyways. Soon told us that the mines in this area were among the first to be discovered in California and were very rich. Many of his friends still lived here and he suggested we have our dinner at a restaurant owned by a friend of his.

The place was hidden away so well that neither Lewis or me would have known what it was, or probably even that it was there, if we hadn’t been with Soon Hing. He led us off the main street and on to a side street, then through a little alleyway between a small house and a carpentry shop. At the end of this alley, we turned right and passed behind a huge willow tree then over to a small pole and tent building with Chinese characters painted on the canvas material.

“You sure this is a restaurant?” Lewis asked as we came nearer to the place. “How on earth would anyone know how to find it?”

Soon Hing smiled. “If they hungry,” he said, “they find.”

Quite a few people had found it by the time we stepped inside. The tables were heaped with food and the room crowded with people.

“Looks like no room for us,” I said, but Soon just smiled.

“We eat in kitchen,” he said. “Get first-class service!”

So we walked on past the tables of customers, all of them Chinamen, and through clouds of strangely potent smells coming from pots and bowls and dishes of the strangest looking food I think I’ve ever seen. Off to the side of the main room was another small canvas tent and this was the kitchen. A man who was laboring over a large steaming kettle looked up for a moment then went back to his work as we entered. But another Chinaman who was standing in front of a counter chopping up some onions on a large board stopped what he was doing and gave out some sort of cry when he saw us. Then he started running toward us with his cleaver in the air and yelling out a string of words in Chinese that sounded like an Indian war whoop to me. Lewis and I quickly ducked behind two large crates of live chickens, figuring our number was up, but Soon just smiled and held out his arms. And when the little Chinaman reached him, the two hugged like they were long-lost relatives, which maybe they were. Then they exchanged a few thousand words in Chinese before Soon at last turned to us and introduced his friend.

“This here Messer Will and Messer Lewis,” he told Yung An. “And this here my very good friend, Yung An, owner of best restaurant in California.”

Yung An, who looked older and more shrunken up than Soon Hing, if that was possible, bowed low then came over to us, holding out the hand with the cleaver. I still wasn’t too sure about this character, but Lewis bowed back and took the cleaver from Yung An, looked it over, then returned it to the chef, all the while commenting on the quality of its workmanship. I guess this is exactly what this Yung An wanted, because he grinned from ear to ear and then passed the big knife to me, which I really talked up good, like it was the best darn cleaver I’d ever seen in my life. Then, we all went over to a big table in a corner of the kitchen and sat down.

While Yung An and Soon Hing took turns chattering away at each other like two magpies, Lewis and I looked around us and saw that the food in this place was mainly vegetables, stored in open bins all over this room – carrots, celery, onions, little flat pea pods, strange looking mushrooms, little heads of cabbage, and piles of these stringy things that looked like wads of grass. All around us in this one little room were more fresh vegetables than either of us had seen in months. There was some meat, too, but not a whole lot. Most of it looked to be pork and maybe some deer meat, and it had all been cut into fine strips about two or three inches long and lay in bins on the floor near where the man stirred away at the big kettle. A number of odd looking canning jars – most filled with brownish liquids and others with dark globby things I couldn’t begin to identify – lined the shelves of a big open cabinet that teetered dangerously along the length of one whole canvas wall. At the other end of the kitchen were hundreds of big bags of rice, stacked along the wall about six feet high. I’d always heard that rice was the only thing Chinamen ate all day long and while that was clearly not the whole truth, it must’ve made up a good part of their diet.

All in all, the place was cluttered but really pretty clean, considering. The cooking odors were pretty interesting, too. I couldn’t really tell what I was smelling, but there wasn’t anything particularly disgusting to my nose. When the man at the kettle brought a number of bowls to our table, however, I began to wonder if I should bow out on tonight’s feast or take a chance on poisoning myself. Even the way we were served was strange in this place. First off, none of us got a plate to put our food on. Instead, there was this large bowl of rice placed in the middle of the table, and five or six other steaming bowls placed around this. Then we were each given a tiny little cup without a handle, and a pair of those chopstick things that we were supposed to use to eat out of these bowls.

After watching Soon Hing and Yung An tuck in, we saw using the sticks was a lot like using a garden spade. After dipping their little cups into whatever pot of food they were interested in, they would throw back their heads, tip the little cup and hold it above their open mouths, then just sort of shovel the food in.

The only decision to make then was which of the dishes looked as though they wouldn’t end up killing us. The rice looked all right, and the rest of the dishes seemed clean enough, but there were still a lot of mysterious looking things lurking under those brown sauces and I had to be convinced by Lewis to try some of them. Right away I was glad I did, because the first few bites I tried had some really interesting flavors. In fact, by the time I’d eaten a dozen or mouthfuls and hadn’t run into anything too disgusting, I was starting to think I really liked Chinese food. That’s when I heard Lewis gasp and I turned and looked his way just in time to see him reach his fingers into his mouth and pull out a four-inch long tentacle. Now, I’d never seen either the Atlantic or the Pacific Oceans, but I knew what kinds of things should best be left under their waters, and octopus was one of them. As for Lewis, his face commenced to turn a sort of light green and he got up and ran out of the kitchen through a screen door that slammed shut with a loud bang behind him. I wasn’t feeling all that well myself about then, but I just lowered my head and closed my eyes, trying my best to think of something other than food. When the queasy feeling had finally passed, I opened my eyes again to find both Yung An and Soon Hing staring at me intently.

“My apologies,” I said sheepishly.

“No, no. Quite all right,” said Yung An. “If you want to say grace in my kitchen, Yung An no mind.”

That night, Lewis and I rested on two cots which had been set up by Yung An in the little grove of trees just outside Yung’s restaurant. As we lay there trying to get to sleep, the two Chinamen sat close together at that kitchen table and visited for what seemed like hours. The sound of their sing-song voices gradually began to lull us both to sleep, but just before we had nodded off, we heard the screen door creak open then slam shut again, and Soon Hing padded over to us and began whispering in our ears.

“You two count lucky stars,” he said. “You be very happy boys. Yung An say he have many miners who know digs near Roaring River. He find them tonight and they be here first thing morning, ready to hit road with us.”

It took a few moments for this to sink in, but when it did, Lewis reacted in a flash.

“Go with us?” he exclaimed, leaping out of his cot. “More Chinamen? Look, Soon, I’m all for any information these men can give us, but I can’t have a whole tribe of coolies following me and Will around. The whole idea is for us to be inconspicuous – to blend in – not to run around the countryside like some traveling Chinese circus act!”

But Soon just smiled. “You no need thank me, Messer Lewis,” he said. “Chinamen come because they like help you. They want stop Messer Carlson because he very bad man. Good night, now. You no worry. You get much good sleep.”

I don't imagine Lewis slept very well at all that night, because I heard him get up a number of times and rush over to throw up in the bushes. I don’t know if it was what he ate, or just the thought of what awaited us the next morning, but one thing or the other kept him hopping all night. When we did finally get up the next morning, there were no less than 13 Chinamen of various ages and sizes standing in little groups around our cots, just waiting for us to get up.

“Ah-ha,” came the voice of Soon Hing, after we had slowly risen from our beds to eyeball our visitors. “I see you finally wake up. Now you meet my men. This Ching Ho, Soon Lung, Chan Ping, Ceong Ah Moy ...”

One name after the other, Soon introduced each of the Chinamen to Lewis and me, as if by some miracle we’d actually remember their names. He told us they had all worked out of a camp not three miles outside the town of Vallecito and they all knew the area well. They would be able to scour the camps around the Roaring River, Soon said, and help us flush out the man Skeeter “like dog chase grouse from thicket.” Soon talked like that a lot, always using some kind of example with animals every time he wanted to make a point. Maybe he figured Lewis and I might understand dogs better than Chinese.

Within the next hour, we were on our way, looking, in Lewis’ estimation, “like some rag-tag, international band of guttersnipes.” He included the two of us in this comment, because we were as worn out and grubby as we’d been at any other point along our journey. But at least when there’d been just the two of us, we’d managed to blend in with our surroundings.

“Thanks to them,” he said in a whisper, “whenever we walk into a mining camp now, we’ll attract more notice than a fox in a hen house.”

I figured Soon Hing would like this example and for a moment I thought about telling him. Then I decided I better keep my mouth shut. Anyway, Soon assured us that his troops, as he liked to call them, could disappear into their surroundings when needed and blend in like chameleons. Anyway, he told us, once we reached the Vallecito area, his men would all just form a small camp as they had in the past. In that way, they’d look authentic and wouldn’t interfere with us in the least.

“We’ll just have to see,” said Lewis, who wasn’t convinced that we needed such a large troop of men.

Shortly after starting off, we learned that Soon liked to travel up front with Lewis and I rather than in back with the other Chinese. We also found him to be a lot more talkative today than the day before and figured it was because he wanted to impress his army of men with his decision-making skills. Lewis, who at first was put out by Soon’s habit of suggesting alternate trails all the time, wasn’t exactly thrilled to have the little Chinaman walking up front with us.

But after a time, he seemed to accept him as a part of our little crusade. Maybe it was because Soon had saved us several hours of walking yesterday, and he did seem after all to be seeking the same justice we were after. After awhile, we were all talking like good friends, sometimes about the weather and the trail and where we were heading, but now and again about Chinese and Americans and some of the things Lorenzo had been so upset about that morning when we first met him outside the post office in Nevada City.

"Why is it that the Chinese have come to California in such great numbers?” Lewis asked at one point. “I know the gold fields must be attracting some of you, but not all Chinese I’ve seen are miners. Many are working on roads, building houses or doing base labor for other men. So what makes your countrymen willing to put up with the resentment they get from Americans? Surely the wages you earn as laborers can’t be so high as to make you willing targets for other men’s scorn?”

“We make more money in America than we make China,” said Soon, “that very true. But it not money that bring us here. We come because we hear in America we free to go where we want and do what we want. We come because American government say to China ‘come, we want your people, come.’ In America we read there are many jobs and much land for everyone. But when we get here, we learn that Americans who say they want us are not same as Americans in mine camps. Maybe Americans who ask us come are somewhere else – you think maybe New York or Washington? I not know. When bad men take our claims, we go to Messer Sawyer and ask him get them back for us. Then Messer Sawyer he ask us many questions and he get madder and madder. He say they want us come because we work for very little dollars. He get mad and say we are California negroes, but Soon Hing not know what he mean by this. Then he read to us from newspaper where people write letters that they do not want us here. They call us coolies, pagans, spreaders of Asia disease. Now they want to make us pay to mine. But all we ask is, tell us if you want us here or not. If yes, we stay. If no, we go home. Do not tell my countrymen they welcome then tell us we not welcome when we arrive. Messer Will, Messer Lewis, you are Americans. Is this thing I say here clear? Does Soon Hing ask foolish questions?”

After we’d been on the road awhile, Lewis and I decided to camp out near a place called Mokelumne Hill instead of staying the night at Alden Jackson’s camp. We figured the colonel was so all-fired American that he’d just naturally be one to dislike the Chinese. And there didn’t seem any reason to lay open Soon Hing and his men to any more ill-will than they were already getting on a regular basis.

Besides, just because we didn’t like them tagging along, it didn’t mean we didn’t like them.